Melissa Edmondson, a Ph.D. candidate in the USC School of Social Work, has received a $20,000 pre-doctoral minority fellowship from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which can be renewed for another two years. The highly competitive fellowship is awarded to ethnic minority students completing their social work doctoral studies who are devoted to the development of mental health and substance abuse research that improves the social well-being of minority communities.

"I was extremely honored to learn I was accepted as a minority fellow," Edmonson said. "The opportunity to connect with social work researchers and students from across the country who are also conducting mental health and substance abuse research is even more valuable than the monetary award itself."

The fellowship covers travel expenses for key networking events such as the CSWE Annual Program Meeting and the Social Work and Research Annual Conference, conference trainings and seminars, living expenses and additional costs associated with students' doctoral research interests.

"Prior to my doctoral studies, I worked as a program director of a residence for individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness. Oftentimes, the approach to providing treatment had to be tailored for clients coming from diverse ethnic backgrounds," Edmondson said.

After making this observation, Edmondson set out to better understand why services needed to vary for persons of different ethnicities to produce favorable outcomes. She also wanted to learn the mechanisms by which tailored services affected outcomes for ethnically diverse patients and how to systematize these different services. Today, Edmondson's research interests also include examining the impact of recovery-oriented treatment in comparison to usual treatment of clinical, functional and quality-of-life outcomes for ethnic minorities diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Edmondson attributes her success, in part, to her mentor, Associate Dean of Research John Brekke, who played a significant role in helping her complete the application process.

The Minority Fellowship Program was developed to educate ethnic minority social work professionals to provide leadership in mental health research and in the delivery of mental health services. In 1974, there were concerns about the limited number of minority scholars able to do indigenous research to improve services to minority communities and the limited participation of minority professionals in the programs of the professional associations. CSWE was awarded a grant from NIMH to increase the number of minority doctoral students majoring in mental health research to help prepare them to be among the next generation of NIMH-funded mental health researchers.